Sign the Petition, Pro Hatchery and Wild

[broncman]

Lake and pond fishing is alright. The problem is when a river or stream (you grew up fishing) is deemed fly fishing only or natural / scenic and they stop stocking Salmon / Steelhead or even Rainbow trout in it. There answer for the trout is that the Salmon / Steelhead smolts are being mistaken for trout. I would like to know what in there minds is the actual % being smiles kept each year.
Aww. Need to stop my blood pressure is rising.

 

[broncman]

This is for anyone that is in Oregon.
Been in contact with this person about the Sandy River and tributaries especially the Salmon River were our family has property.
Tod Alsbury
District Fish Biologist
ODFW - North Willamette Watershed District
17330 SE Evelyn Street
Clackamas, OR, 97015
971-673-6011 (Office)
503-781-8286 (Cell)
971-673-6071 (Fax)
Email [email protected]

He likes to hear what people think and will even meet with you if you so wanted.

 

[mkwerx]

This is for anyone that is in Oregon.
Been in contact with this person about the Sandy River and tributaries especially the Salmon River were our family has property.
Tod Alsbury
District Fish Biologist
ODFW - North Willamette Watershed District
17330 SE Evelyn Street
Clackamas, OR, 97015
971-673-6011 (Office)
503-781-8286 (Cell)
971-673-6071 (Fax)
Email [email protected]

He likes to hear what people think and will even meet with you if you so wanted.

I hear you - they stopped stocking the creek i grew up fishing too - it went to artificials and flies at the same time. Surprising to yhe odfw some wild fish runs came about because of stocking and the creek still sees coho and steelies despite the stocking ceasing over a decade ago.

I fly fish, lure fish, and bait fish and while i think artificial only has a place - there needs to be opportunity for all without having to drive 100 miles.

At least zekes daughter wants to fish - we need youngsters gettibg involved to keeep the sport alive and give a damn when they are old enough to vote. Most kids would rather play on a video game console or computer than pick up rod and reel.

 

[broncman]

Well at least your stream wasn't deemed wild and scenic. On the Salmon River they stopped stocking everything (about 15 years ago) and now any fin clipped Salmon or Steelhead that venture up the river are trapped just before the river enters the Sandy and transported down river to the Eagle Creek hatchery. (They don't want those fish up past the hatchery. The few wild that are left are supposedly released above the fish trap.
Apparently the Sandy and Willamette River System runs are way below normal to record low yet all I hear in the news is how there are record setting runs going up the Columbia River. Gives those imposing these scenic, natural or pro wild rivers some more ammo in converting more of our great rivers and streams into near fish less wonders of beauty.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

The hatchery program is a failed enterprise because it does little to revitalize and support the native fisheries. The sampling if natives is way too narrow in the current program and monies would be better spent creating more native hatchery habitat and allowing returning fish to spawn in that environment rather than collecting eggs and manipulating the water temperatures to produce Trips.

Damn, I am old enough to remember huge returns of Salmon and Steelhead in the coastal rivers. My Granddad used to take huge salmon out of the Santiam!! Enforce the regs, change the laws with regard to Native American Fishing to something more aligned with todays civilization and restore the populations.



Exactly!!

I'm totally with you, especially since those treaties were with people who were predated by other peoples such as Kennewick Man, who was a white dude. The Indians have no natural right to destroy NW fish runs

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Lots of ponds and lakes geared toward children, dont get discouraged. Bait is a ok at almost all the lakes in oregon. Esp. At the children only fisheries.

That may be true, but I started learning at 4 years old where to drop a salmon egg in a stream to catch a fish. This served me well later on when I learned to fly fish. I knew where the fish were in any given stream habitat from all those years of dunking salmon eggs. Most of the clowns with $5000 fly fishing outfits I see over on the Deschutes don't even know how to use a fly rod. My dad could make a 60 foot cast and drop a fly in a basketball hoop sized area with the fly landing first and the line gently falling onto the surface afterwards. He taught me how to do it, but I never got as good as he was. The people I see over there flailing away with their expensive equipment would be comical if it wasn't so sad.

 

[mkwerx]

That may be true, but I started learning at 4 years old where to drop a salmon egg in a stream to catch a fish. This served me well later on when I learned to fly fish. I knew where the fish were in any given stream habitat from all those years of dunking salmon eggs. Most of the clowns with $5000 fly fishing outfits I see over on the Deschutes don't even know how to use a fly rod. My dad could make a 60 foot cast and drop a fly in a basketball hoop sized area with the fly landing first and the line gently falling onto the surface afterwards. He taught me how to do it, but I never got as good as he was. The people I see over there flailing away with their expensive equipment would be comical if it wasn't so sad.

Best that can be done is to constantly write ODFW and try to get them to change the rules. Though I've BTDT that thus far, nothing has changed. I've even had the biologists tell me that my proposals were spot on with their findings re: soft plastics vs real bait when I wrote trying to get soft plastics removed from the catagory of "bait" and into the catagory of "lure" - rivers like the Pudding and Tualatin are overrun with bass and warm water fish, but you can't fish for them with the most productive methods after certain arbitrary points.

Due to my work schedule I can't attend most any of the meetings they schedule for "public input" and sometimes it feels like bashing my head into a wall. $$$ and political pull decide ODFW policy - look what they did to us on the Columbia - they put the stop to fishing in youngs bay, and if you fish a Columbia River Tributary stream (or the big C itself) you get to pay $10 a year so the state can give the money to the f'ing gill netters because they're not making enough money. They give them exclusive zones to fish without "competition" from rod & line anglers, they cut our seasons short and let the commercials mop up fish because sport anglers didn't catch enough hatchery fish (because they cut the seasons short...) and they put stupid rules like barbless hook mandates onto the Columbia.

But you probably have a better chance at getting regulations changed on one small stream than a general reg change. Then again, maybe you have a talented 4 year old that can learn to fish with a flyrod first. My first marriage rodeo - I taught my then-5 year old step daughter how to dap, and even got her putting out 20 foot casts with a 4 weight fly rod. Tenkara type fly rods might be another option to look at. I talked with a fellow customer at River City fly shop a while back about them - he was part of a group that took a bunch of young folks, never been fishing before in their lives, down to the Metolius and had them hooking and landing trout on Tenkara rods. Made a bunch of the hoity toity match-the-hatch guys nuts. Some soft hackles, egg patterns, maybe a royal coachman and your daughter can still catch a fish. A short, ultra light fly rod would be easy enough for her to handle too - something like a 6' 2 weight, or for a far less expensive option - Eagle Claw has a 6'6" fiberglass 3 weight that costs about $20 at places like Dicks or Sportman's Warehouse. A $10 Shakespeare reel and a $10 eBay fly line and she's in business.

Or drive on out this way next summer and I can point you two to some decent trout water on the Wilson, where bait is still allowed and by June the river fishes like a small stream in most places. The resident cutthroat are eager and put up a decent tussle. My boy will be 4 next summer and should be about ready to join me for some river trips by then.

 

[salmonriverjohn]

This is just my opinion, but I feel that perhaps those "bunch of the hoity toity match-the-hatch guys" should be only allowed to fish the streams that are now deemed as fly fishing only as thats what they have done to all others that don't fit into their version of elete anglers. Yep, ban them from fishing any other stream- let them taste the segregation that they have forced upon all others that don't fit into their self imposed arrogant class of upper crust society.

I mean after all, its not only hazardous to walk behind a fly fishermans backcast, but all that wading in the water to get away from trees and streamside growth is detrimental to bottom life and the growth of required nutrients that support the fish, let alone the silt thats kicked up that could "potentially" smother any eggs that happen to be down stream.
Fight fire with fire so to speak.

 

[Martini_Up]

'white dude"

 

[salmonriverjohn]

Why thank you!

 

[Caveman Jim]

Yep make them holier than thou fish only fly streams!!!!

Sounds good to me!!!

 

[salmonriverjohn]

Truth be told I have both a St. croix Imperial and an LCI fly set up, do I believe that all others should be forced to either use a fly rod or go home? Heck no. If I elect to use them on any given stream, thats a choice I make and I don't think for a second that others that choose to dunk a worm should be excluded.

I'm also an avid bait flinger who loves fishing for almost anything with fins. There's not much better than taking a kid out and getting them into those first fish and seeing the excitement in their eyes and that grin on their face as they set the hook on a down bobber and reel in a WORM hooked trout, priceless.

Oh yes, almost forgot,, I'm also a white dude.